SPECIAL REPORT: Inside Agatu killing field: blood on the streets, charred bodies everywhere


Please read this thread no matter how long it is... so you can see what faces nigeria if care is not taken.........because this looks like a planned attack orchestrated by influential northerners



Across the Nasarawa-Benue borderline, Agatu was still hundreds of miles away but passengers on the motorway were already getting an eyeful of savagery. In a village farm with fresh ridges heralding a new planting season, a young Fulani herder was perched on a cashew tree, his cattle trampling below him.

Armed with a machete, he was hacking away at the lush branches, felling them to the ground for the animals to feed. The farm owners stood outside their huts and like the passing motorists could only watch helplessly as the cash crop was stripped bare and their yam seedlings destroyed.

The routes to Makurdi and on to Otukpo and Apa were characterized by the same landscape and scenario. Along both sides of the road were hundreds of farmlands with ridges and all dotted with cashew trees, mangoes and oranges; and all tempting sights to nomadic herdsmen and their livestock.

Provocative as the first cross-border scene was, the young Fulani herder on the cashew tree was simply conducting his business in a peaceful manner, going by the benchmark of good relationship between farmers and armed herders in the Middle Belt region of Nigeria.

Weeks ago, the Agatu region of Benue State became a red spot on the world map when Fulani cattle rearers in combat gears, armed with the trademark AK-47 rifles, invaded several villages and farm settlements in broad daylight, gunning down children, women, men and the elderly alike. About 300 villagers were reportedly massacred in the first killing spree with heavy casualties recorded in communities like Aila, Okokolo, Akwu, Adagbo, Odugbehon and Odejo.

With soldiers from 82 Division Enugu stationed in Aila and Obagaji, the headquarters of Agatu Local Government Area, the alternative access road from Apa was a connection of snaky farm roads that crisscrossed several abandoned villages. PREMIUM TIMES travelled those routes on the back of a motorbike, transported by one of the brave young men who have now taken to sneaking into abandoned villages in search of unburnt food barns, especially bags of locally produced rice to salvage and take back to their displaced families in Apa and elsewhere.

From Aila to Obagaji, Akwu to Odejo, the invaders burned down houses, churches and police posts. Here and there corpses were seen lying in the most grotesque positions. The totally dried corpses in various stages of decomposition were pointers that the killings must have been done at different times. The gory sights equally suggested that the marauders kept coming back for returnees, undeterred by the presence of soldiers.











Adejo, the motorbike transporter who invariably doubled as a tour guide pointed out what used to be the family home of one Deborah Onuminya in Aila. The four-bedroom bungalow was badly burnt. So also was a kitchen and pen house behind it. A charred television antennae was still hanging on, a reminder of the status symbol of its owner in a farming community that grew yam, cassava, rice, beans, guinea corn, pepper and tomatoes. Skeletons of iron beds, a television set, a refrigerator, crates of soft drinks, burnt mattresses and beddings, children’s books and shoes and a toy tricycle could be found in various parts of the building. In one of the rooms, apparently used as a store, were bags of charred grains, baking pans and a bag of either burnt flour or garri.

Two days earlier, PREMIUM TIMES had met Deborah Onuminya at a displaced people’s camp in Otukpo. The 36-year-old mother of three had said she had no clue whether her husband was dead or alive. Mrs. Onuminya and her family had only four years ago relocated from the city to her home village, Aila. While her husband was already a successful farmer, the housewife was just getting established in catering business.

“I can farm but I decided to do something different like making buns, puff-puff and chin-chin. As a matter of fact, on that fateful day that Fulani attacked us, I had just returned from the city where I had gone to buy baking materials for my small business,” she had said.

Recounting the hour the attackers descended on her village, Mrs. Onuminya had told PREMIUM TIMES:

“The Fulanis came in about 1.00 p.m. I had just returned from the market and was sleeping on a mat under a tree outside my house when pandemonium broke out. Some youths were screaming and alerting everyone that armed Fulani men had invaded us. I grabbed my children and fled without a blouse on. People were running in different directions amidst sounds of gun fire. Some people did not know where their children were as they ran. Most of our men were in the farm that hour when the Fulani struck, so we had nobody to defend us as children, women and the elderly were shot dead or butchered with knives. Most of the people killed were the children and elderly who could not run fast enough, and others who ran back into the house to take cash or carry one belonging or the other.”

Between the kitchen and the pen house in Mrs Onuminya’s burnt home was the charred remains of a human body. The youthful escort on motorbike told PREMIUM TIMES he could not identify the victim just as he could not tell if it was the body of a man or a woman. If that was the body of Deborah’s missing husband, then he had probably ran home in a fatal attempt to rescue his family.

Another Aila housewife, Amina Peter, told PREMIUM TIMES how she lost three male family members to rampaging Fulani herdsmen about a month before the mass massacre that drove every survivor into exile. Mrs. Peter gave the names of her murdered family members as Choche Abu, Enechie Obochi and Godwin Gordugbor. According to her, the three men were loggers and were working inside the forest with a power saw when the noise of their engines apparently attracted some Fulani herdsmen. The three men were shot at close range, she said.

Piecing together the bloody history of Agatu’s relationship with herdsmen, 41-year old former police officer, Shaibu Ahmadu, told PREMIUM TIMES in the Otukpo IDP camp that the latest mass killing was the climax of an expansionist agenda that began years ago in Nassarawa State by the Fulanis. Earlier, communities like Tom-Anyiin, Tom-Ataan, Mbaya and Tombu in Buruku Local Government Area of the state have fallen to the Fulanis.

“I never knew a day like this will come when Aila my village will be burnt to the ground. Until now, we were shielded because of our location by other villages like Adana, Abugbe, Ocholonya, Ogboju and Odogheho; those were neighbouring communities that had in the past come under Fulani attacks.”

“This time the invaders came by boat from Nasarawa State. They crossed the River Benue by boat to our place. Before it was the river that was protecting us but not anymore as the Fulanis invaded in their hundreds by boats,” Mr. Ahmadu lamented.

The former police officer added that Aila had always been coveted by the Fulanis.because of its extremely fertile farmlands. To get to this prized target, the herders chose first to target and conquer Okokolo community.

Explaining the strategy, Mr. Ahmadu said:

“Okokolo was a kind of fortress populated by a brave and headstrong clan; that was where the Fulanis had met the fiercest resistance to their incursion. So they must have told themselves that if they can attack and run over Okokolo, everyone else will get the message. To achieve this, they attacked Okokolo not once, not twice but three times. They came today, tomorrow and the next.”

“It was a war. And once they burnt down Okokolo, they marched on Akwu, Adagbo and finally Aila. It was impossible to repel them; we were just ordinary farmers with hoes and cutlasses while the Fulanis were armed with AK-47,” the ex-cop explained, with eyes misty.






A history of bloodbath

Agatu is not the first homeland in Benue State to receive what is now referred to as baptism of fire from herdsmen. Between 2011 and 2014, suspected herdsmen attacked dozens of communities in the four local government areas of Guma, Gwer-East, Buruku and Gwer-West, some more than once.

The hometown of the late Tor Tiv IV, Alfred Akawe Torkula, in Guma was razed. Similarly, houses, food barns and farmlands were burnt and scores killed in communities like Tse-Aderogo, Tse-Akenyi, Umenger, Angyom, Aondona, Anyiase, Adaka, Gbajimba, Tyoughtee, Gbaange, Chembe, Abeda, Mbachoon, Tongov and Mbapuu.

Barely five days to the end of Governor Gabriel Suswan administration in May 2015, over 100 farmers and family members were massacred in villages and refugees camps located at Ukura, Per, Gafa and Tse-Gusa in Logo Local Government Area of the state.

The unlucky communities were only playing hosts to refugees from previous attacks by the suspected herdsmen.

In July 2015, suspected herdsmen attacked Adeke, a community on the outskirt of the state capital, Makurdi. Last December, six persons were killed at Idele village in Oju local government area. A reprisal attack by youths in the community saw three Fulani herdsmen killed and beheaded. The Oju killings were followed by an attack this January at Ucha Nyiev village, near the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi.

Residents of the beleaguered State were yet to get over the aftershock of Ucha Nyiev when the suspected herders struck again, this time in Ega Adapati, an island in Agatu local government. It was gathered that before this last attack on the wider Agatu, local intelligence units had raised the alarm that the herdsmen were mobilizing weapons and men at Loco, a border community in Nasarawa State.

Territorial conquest

A disturbing pattern may have appeared with the large-scale invasion of Agatu. Whilst in the past the herdsmen would attack, kill and disappear, this time with Agatu they appeared to have come with an occupation agenda.

Adejo, the motorbike transporter who also interacts with a new anti-Fulani local militia called the Agatu Warriors, told PREMIUM TIMES that most of the sacked villages had been taken over by the Fulanis who he said were pouring in from Nasarawa with their cattle. The development, he said, was responsible for the inability of the fleeing natives to return to give mass burial to corpses littering the villages and farmlands.

“They are coming in large numbers with their cows. The military is not stopping them. If we can go beyond here (Aila) to Abugbe, Ocholonya or Adana, you will see Fulani in combat jackets with sophisticated guns grazing their cows,” Adejo said

read more @ http://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/200369-special-report-inside-agatu-killing-field-blood-on-the-streets-charred-bodies-everywhere.html

Just like hobbesian state of nature. Since Buhari has elected to look the other way while his fulani militias execute an expansionist agenda, The masses are hereby mandated to hold Buhari under citizens arrest wherever he is sighted pending when saraki and the Senate develop the required balls of brass to proceed on impeaching Mr buhari for returning the nation to a state of nature. His dogs and baboons militiamen strategy is working so well for him now cos our lands are filled with blood.

People should plan to leave Nigeria cos Buhari can not secure you!

GodpunishBuhari:
SPECIAL REPORT: Inside Agatu killing field: blood on the streets, charred bodies everywhere


Please read this thread no matter how long it is... so you can see what faces nigeria if care is not taken.........because this looks like a planned attack orchestrated by influential northerners

picture or....

I'm in

*Enters thread grab sit* oga kwatinu

DickDastardly:
I'm in

updated mynd44 , lalasticlala do the needful please, its not only saraki and rivers we will focus on, we need the world to see this terrorist organisation too

SleekMallam:
Waiting.....

updated

The cattle men... There's something I'm not quite sure of, were they on a revenge mission or were they high on cow milk??

The state Government doesn't give a hoot about its citizen likewise our dear PMB, no sympathy or warning from the presidency but they were quick to respond to the Rivers killing. We are watching.

Buhari will never see this...

and the dullard presido muhaMad buhari can't call his senseless brothers to order.

Mrjo:
*Enters thread grab sit* oga kwatinu

you can read now

munchi:

picture or....

you can read if you want pics enter premium times and view it

ZOMBIES ARE IN DEEP SHIT

GodpunishBuhari:

you can read if you want pics enter premium times and view it

add link or you know better about your story

Ozaoekpe severussnape drss dunkem01 ngeneukwenu omenka beremx chocolateme hungerbad tonyebarcAnista truckpusher ozoigbondu modath aufbauh onankpaba ogbeiefuro blackpanda mynd1 seun

munchi:

add link or you know better about your story

Link is there you blind?

If any of you believes in 'one Nigeria', you just have to accept the Fulani and their murderous ways. That is the price of one Nigeria. They own Nigeria and they will do whatever they want and nobody is going do nothing

GodpunishBuhari:

Link is there you blind?

it was modified..... dumb ass

munchi:

it was modified.....
dumb ass

I modified it before quoting you don't be silly Lil boy

This is definitely not good, and some people supported this regime from there, where is your president?

GodpunishBuhari:


updated

This is more than enough to get all Nigerians on the streets of ojota carnival style.

y r these grown men squabbling like ladies' cat fight (@munchi & GodpunishBuhari)

Fingers crossed

GodpunishBuhari:

I modified it before quoting you don't be silly Lil boy

You said it all your self

Oh boy

I am speechless

Buhari should be held solely responsible for this murderous carnage

Lalasticlala and mynd44 you want this thread in trash to cover this madness? Is this how it's down now? A thread to let everyone know what happened you guys ignored it continue

Animals.
You can almost feel a conflagration happening in that country.